Adam, Stop Being a Twit About Twitter

The box where you enter your twitter communication into specifically asks, “What are you doing?”

If I am waking up, taking a walk, about to shower or writing a blog post – those following me on twitter may want to know or may not.

Twitter is not a blog it is a quick way to put down what you are doing at the moment.

I twit if I am going through my feeds or running through forums or going to play basketball or if I am at a wedding. Doesn’t matter how big or small it is, it is twit worthy, in my opinion.

Adam explains that your twitter communication has to be “informative or entertaining.” No it doesn’t. Did I know that when I was leaving for the airport, that there would be a majoraccident in the GSP, that made me twitter that i think i will miss my flight that ended up coming true. The twitters goes on, but as you can see, something that was very not interesting or entertaining, turned into something that was. Without that first twitter, it would not have been as entertaining.

Monty Loree left a comment at Adam’s blog saying, “I get a sense that many people who spend countless hours isolated behind a keyword, need an out let to say things like “I ate a cheese burger” etc.”

It is true, very true. Twitter gives that to me. I blog dozens of times per day. Let me have my out and don’t be a twit about it. 😉

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Sometimes it’s fun to just know that other people have lives just like you do and it’s not all serious work and productivity all the time.

It’s also rather therapeutic to be able to relay some of the minor co-worker/business/family annoyances to sympathetic listeners. They aren’t big enough annoyances to warrant a dissertation; they’re just “Dude, check out what the tool in IT just said to me…” types of things.

I like twitter in that it allows me to see that I’m not the only one who gets stuck in way too many meetings to be productive and that others feel my pain. It’s not about being informative or entertaining, it’s about feeling each other’s pain and connecting with the person, not the project / company.

Right ON Barry!
I love twitter as well. Even though it is fun and sometimes dull (nothing wrong with that), I do find it educative. I learned about new things and made new connections. That my friends is cool and priceless.

I originally had my doubts about Twitter but I now it is open as an extra tab next to Bloglines. I have found it useful to help get things Dugg, help others get things Dugg, find interesting posts that I might not have come across otherwise, develop some new relationships and finally to get a glimpse of what my friends are doing in their daily life.

So far it is pretty interesting. I just have to make sure it is not too much of a time robber. 😉

First, while it may be a losing battle, I need to re-emphasize that I do not speak for Google on my blog. So, yeah, feel free to refer to me as a Googler or whatever, but I want it to be clear that my opinions are mine, mine, mine… not that of my group at Google or my boss or my poor office-mates, etc. 😛

With that said, it seems clear that my views on Twitter are not shared by most Twitterers, at least not the most vocal ones.

But I’ll be a twit myself and hypothesize that this is sort of a self-fulfilling / circular thing: people who actively Twitter like Twitter so they use it; people who think it’s lame either never started using it or likely stopped using it and stopped caring about it, and so on.

I’m one of those odd birds who says… hmm… imagine how much potential this idea has and how much better it’d be if… [blah blah blah]. I think it tweets were more informative/interesting (not I’m not saying “important” or “life-changing” :P), that the service would attract 10-100x more folks.

First, didn’t mean to imply your talking from Google’s perspective. Was not my intention. It helps people grasp who you are, if I add that you are from Google and work with Matt Cutts. So that explains that.

Regarding making Twitter better. I am cool with your suggestions but Twitter will grow from those who are the most vocal and listened to Twitters. So there is still room to shape that. We will see where that goes.

I honestly enjoy Twitter, I can type anything, no matter how short and people may write back. Heck, if I am watching 24, and I twitter that I am, maybe another Twitter follower will say he or she is. Bam, that is what makes it fun also.

Just for public record. If you took my post personally, please don’t. It was meant to be fun. I just want to make it clear to any reader that the smilie face at the end, represented the tone of humor and not anger.

Totally didn’t take it personally; I enjoy the back-and-forth here and in my blog comments, too!

And I know you — and probably most if not all of the readers here — know that I don’t speak for Google on stuff like this :P. But it’s one of those things I worry about in the back of my mind… a future headline like: “Google’s Adam Lasnik slams Twitter; is Google building a Twitter Killer?”

This is also the reason why I don’t make fun of Microsoft or other real/perceived competitors of Google. Paranoid about headlines 😀